A Simplification of the Foreword to The Urantia Book

William S. Sadler, Jr.

This document is a transcription of a talk given by William S. Sadler, Jr. to young people, clarifying and simplifying the teachings of the Foreword of The Urantia Book. Reset from the 1977 original by Asoka Foundation, 3333 S. Council Road, Oklahoma City, OK 73179-4410.

Introduction

Human beings are mixed up about what the words, "God," "deity,"
and "divinity mean. People are still more confused about the way divine
personalities work together and by the way in which they are related. People
do not have very many ideas about these things, and the ideas they do have
are mixed up. I have therefore written this story to tell what we mean
when we use certain words. These words will be used in the papers which
we people from Orvonton have written in English for you people of Urantia.

We want to give you more truth. We want to make your ideas about the
universe bigger. We want to help you reach out for more spiritual things.
But it is hard to do this when we have to use your poor language. And we
have been told that we must tell our story in your language. We are allowed
to use new words only when we cannot find any word in English that will
do the job -- even partly do the job.

We want to help you understand what we have to say. We want to help
you keep from getting mixed up. So we feel that it is a good idea to tell
you just what we mean when we use certain English words. This story I am
writing here is the story of what we mean when we use these English words
to talk about Deity. We will also say what we mean when we use certain
words to tell about things, meanings and values that hold good everywhere.

In order to tell this beginning story, we have to lift ourselves by
our bootstraps. We have to use these very words when we talk about them.
So, this story cannot be a complete story. It is just the story about what
we mean when we use these words in the papers. These papers are going to
tell about Deity and the big creation. Some of the papers are written by
my group -- a group of beings who have come from Orvonton to Urantia to
do this job.

Your world, Urantia, is one of many worlds on which people like you
live. Your world, with many others, makes up the local universe of Nebadon.
This local universe, with a lot of other ones, makes up the superuniverse
of Orvonton. The superuniverse of Orvonton is not all there is. There are
six more like it; seven in all. All seven of them circle around a place
called Havona. Havona is the central universe. Havona, the central universe,
never had a beginning and it will never come to an end. It is a universe
of divine perfection. At the very center of this central universe is the
Isle of Paradise. Paradise does not move. It is the center point of infinity.
God lives there.

The seven Superuniverses are growing and changing. The central universe
is perfect. When we think about all of them together, then we call them
the grand universe. The grand universe has people living in it. It has
a government. But that is not all of creation. The grand universe itself
is just a part of something even bigger. It is a part of the master universe.
The master universe includes universes where nobody lives yet. These universes
are out in outer space.

I. Deity and Divinity

The universe of universes has a lot of things going on in it. Deity
is at work. This work has to do with matter, mind, and spirit. Some of
this work is personal; some of it is not. But all of it has the same flavor;
this is the flavor of divinity. And all of it is regulated so the different
parts work together.

DEITY can be real as a personality, as God. But this is not all there
is to Deity. Deity can also exist before and beyond personality; but humans
are not going to understand this very well. When you get above the material
level, then everything that Deity does will tie in, sooner or later. What
pulls all of the work of Deity together is divinity -- at least that is
the best way to tell you.

Deity acts in a personal way. Deity also acts in a way that could be
called "before being personal." Deity acts in a third way that
could be called "beyond being personal." When you try to think
about how total Deity would act, then you had better think about a house
with seven stories. Total Deity is in action all the time on each of these
seven levels. Let's talk about these seven levels:

1. Static. We have to start with this level. Static means "not
moving." You had better think about Deity on this level as being,
rather than acting; as existing, rather than as doing something. But this
is logical: We have to start by saying that Deity IS something before we
can say that Deity DOES something.

2. Potential. This is the second level and it is different from the
first. What does the word "potential" mean? It means that there
is room for something. A bowl has value because it is empty; you can put
something in it. Before Deity could do anything there had to be an emptiness
which could be filled. In the presence of this emptiness Deity now has
a plan. The universe (in theory) is not yet here, but the blueprint for
it is.

3. Associative. Here on the third level we get the picture of personality
coming into being. Here Deity achieves fatherhood. God becomes Universal
Father of the Eternal Son. The Trinity is suggested here. God is no longer
alone; he has associates with whom he can experience brotherhood.

4. Creative. On this fourth level Deity begins to act as we understand
action. Now the Gods begin to share themselves with other beings. They
begin to give themselves away -- to distribute themselves to other personalities.
Now they begin to show themselves to other beings and to let creatures
know about them.

5. Evolutional. Now Deity is expanding, growing out of the boundaries
of the central universe. Deity on this level even goes into partnership
with creatures.

6. Supreme. On this level Deity learns how to experience; Deity escapes
from always knowing everything ahead of time. On this level Deity learns
what it is like to be a creature -- to start out small and grow. Here Deity
puts together what man gets out of living and blends it with what God gets
out of being. On this level Deity works in time and space. Here, Deity
does not directly rule the grand universe but rather works more behind
the scenes -- works to coordinate and direct the rulers of the grand universe.
We sometimes call this the Supremacy of Deity.

7. Ultimate. This is the last level of the activity of total Deity.
One way of thinking of this level is to think of Deity pushing out into
the future. Another thing that happens on this level is that Deity rises
above time and space. This means that here Deity is all powerful, all knowing,
and everywhere present. On the preceding level (the sixth) Deity coordinates
everything that happens in the grand universe. Now, on this (seventh) level,
Deity does the same sort of coordinating job, only now it is for the whole
master universe. Deity acts here in a more-than-finite (in an absonite)
way. This means having the last word to say and keeping everything running
-- without limit. We call this activity on the seventh level the Ultimacy
of Deity.

Now that we have talked about the seven levels on which total Deity
acts, let's talk about three other ways of looking at "levels."

The finite level. Now, we are looking more at the levels of creation
rather than the levels of Deity action. On the finite level we have creatures
-- people like you Urantians, humans and other types of creatures. On the
finite level things happen one after another; they happen in time. Also,
you can only be one place at a time. Finite things and people may not come
to an end, but you can be sure that they always have a beginning. They
are created. You will remember our discussion of the sixth level of total
Deity function; we talked about the Supremacy of Deity. Well, the Deity
level of Supremacy works on this finite level of existence.

The Absonite level. Perhaps you had better think of this level as something
in between the finite and the absolute. On this absonite level there are
things and beings that have no beginning and no ending. Here also, things
can take place which are not limited by time or space. These happenings
do not ignore time and space, they just rise above time and space -- transcend
time and space. We call the beings who exist on this level absoniters.
Absoniters are not created; they are "eventuated." We could use
a new word here, but perhaps "eventuated" will do. At any rate,
absoniters simply are. You will recall our discussion of the seventh level
of total Deity action; we talked about the Ultimacy of Deity. Well, the
Deity level of Ultimacy has to do with this absonite level of existence.
No matter where you may be in the master universe, if you see something
happening that does not take any time and/or something that seems to be
happening everywhere at once -- if you see this, you can be sure that it
is an absonite action. You can also be sure that it is an act of the Ultimacy
of Deity.

The absolute level. This is the third and last level of existence. It
is beyond the absonite level. The absonite level transcends time; the absolute
level just ignores time -- it is timeless. The absonite level transcends
space; the absolute level simply ignores space -- it is spaceless. The
absolute level is entirely beyond any business of beginnings or endings.
For example: There isn't any time or space on the Isle of Paradise. Paradise
is absolute as far as time and space are concerned; it is "outside"
of space and "before" time. The Paradise Trinity (Father, Son,
and Spirit) works on this absolute level. This level cannot be co-ordinated
by any act of Deity that is growing by experience.

Whenever Deity acts on this absolute level then you will have happenings
that are final in the complete sense of that word -- there is nothing beyond
them.

Deity may be non-growing, ever-the-same (existential), as in the Eternal
Son. Deity may be growing by experience, changing (experiential), as in
the Supreme Being. Deity may be made up of a grouping together of many
divine creators (associative) as in God the Sevenfold. Deity may be a complete
oneness (undivided) as in the case of the Paradise Trinity.

Everything that you would recognize (and more) as divine comes from
Deity. It is always the nature of Deity to be divine. But something can
be divine and still not be Deity. But even if it is not Deity, it will
be related to Deity and it will always try to get closer to Deity in a
spiritual, mindal, or personal way.

DIVINITY is the flavor of Deity. All acts of Deity are divine. It is
this divinity that makes sure that all Deity acts will work together, never
in opposition.

As human beings would understand divinity, it is truth, beauty, and
goodness. When personality shows divinity, it appears as love, mercy, and
ministry. But when Deity does not act as personality (as in the Trinity)
then divinity is revealed as justice, power, and sovereignty.

Divinity may be perfect and complete; this is the way it is when a Paradise
Creator acts. Divinity may also be imperfect; this is the way it appears
down on your level of creature existence. Divinity may be relative -- neither
perfect nor imperfect; this is the way it is on certain in-between levels.
The central universe of Havona is just such an in-between level; it is
not absolutely perfect like the Isle of Paradise, neither is it incomplete
and imperfect as are the evolving superuniverses.

When we try to think about perfection, then we discover that here are
a number of possible combinations. There is absolute perfection, there
is relative perfection, and then there is imperfection. These can be combined
in seven possible ways:

1. Absolute perfection.

2. Some absolute perfection and some relative perfection.

3. All three in combination - absolute, relative, and imperfect.

4. Some absolute perfection, some imperfection.

5. Relative perfection.

6. Some relative perfection, some imperfection.

7. Imperfection.

II. God

Human beings like you are always reaching for words to describe God.
You have ideas about moral duty. You also have ideals about spiritual worth.
When you put these two together you have something that is hard to describe
in words.

If you think very much about the universe, you soon get the idea that
someone started it. And soon after, you get the further idea that nothing
started the "someone who started the universe." This someone-who-started-everything,
this First Cause, is God. God is the Universal Father. He acts without
limit, in infinity. But what we want to tell you about now is how he acts
with limit: how he acts as a personality, how he acts in a less-than-infinite
way, and how he acts to show forth, not absolute divinity, but relative
divinity. From these viewpoints we can talk about his actions on three
levels:

1. Prepersonal. When God detaches a piece of himself, he makes a Thought
Adjuster. The Adjuster is not a person and God is not "father"
of such an Adjuster. Persons are fathers only of other persons. God is
the "source" of the Adjuster but not the father of the Adjuster.
This is a good illustration of how God acts in a prepersonal way.

2. Personal. God is father of all personalities. This is true of both
created beings (like angels) and of procreated beings (like humans). When
God acts in relation to a person then he is working on this second level.
When God loves man, such an act of love takes place on this level.

3. Superpersonal. On this level God is relating himself to beings who
are more than finite. Such absonite beings are more than personalities.

God is a word which we never use unless we mean Deity personality in
one way or another. Deity has many levels of personal action. The word
God has to be defined differently for each of these levels. It must also
be further defined within each of these levels. The word God is used not
only to mean the Universal Father, but also to mean co-ordinate and subordinate
Deity personalities. For example, the word God could be used to designate
the Paradise Creator Sons -- the local universe fathers.

The term God, as we make use of it, may be understood:

A. By designation, as when we say God the Father.

B. By context. Here, the other words in the sentence will make it clear
as to just whom we are talking about. But if there is any doubt about what
we mean, then let the word God stand for the Universal Father.

The word God is smaller than the word Deity. God always means personality.
Deity may refer to personality or it may not.

The word GOD is used in these papers with the following meanings:

1. God the Father -- Creator, Controller, and Upholder. The Universal
Father, the First Person of Deity.

2. God the Son. Co-ordinate Creator, Spirit Controller, and Spiritual
Administrator. The Eternal Son, the Second Person of Deity.

3. God the Spirit. Conjoint Actor, Universal Integrator, and Mind Bestower.
The Infinite Spirit, the Third Person of Deity.

4. God the Supreme. This is the finite God. He has a beginning and he
is growing in time and space. God the Supreme is putting together all of
the experiences of creators and creatures in time and space. He is blending
and unifying this experience. He is tying all this experience together.
He is Deity-like and yet he is creature-like, evolutionary and growing.
This putting together of all these things is a personal achievement of
the Supreme Being.

5. God the Sevenfold. Wherever you find Deity personality working in
time and space, there you have found God the Sevenfold. This is the Father,
Son, and Spirit working with their creative associates in the grand universe.
These combined activities all add up into the Supreme Being. The Supreme
Being is personally building his sovereign power out of these activities
of God the Sevenfold. This growing Supreme Being is becoming the first
complete revelation of Deity in time and space. God the Sevenfold works
in the grand universe. There are two related streams of personality movement
in the grand universe. Out from Paradise comes a descending stream of perfect
personalities. In toward Paradise flows the stream of ascending creatures.

6. God the Ultimate. The Supreme Being evolves; the Ultimate "eventuates."
(Remember the word "eventuate" in the discussion of the absonite
beings who are not created -- they simply are!) God the Ultimate works
in relation to, but outside of, time and space. He works in supertime and
transcended space. The Supreme is the first revelation of Deity unity in
time and space; the Ultimate is the second. If you want to try to think
about what this means, you have to think big. The completed growth of God
the Ultimate awaits the completed growth of at least the master universe.
This means the completion of everything finite and everything absonite.

7. God the Absolute. Absonite beings are superpersonal; they have a
relationship to God the Ultimate. But these absoniters would have to become
super-superpersonal to have a similar relationship to God the Absolute.
That is what we mean by the expression "transcended superpersonal
values." The Supreme represents a first level of unifying Deity expression
and expansion; the Ultimate a second such level; God the Absolute represents
a third and final such level. God the Absolute would be experiencible;
but he is not now present in this sense. He is, however, existent as the
(non-experiencible) Deity Absolute. This third level (the level of God
the Absolute) is the end of the line as far as Deity growth and expansion
are concerned. There isn't anything more to personalize. There is no more
divinity left over. God has fully revealed himself. Beyond this level we
go beyond Deity itself. Beyond this level we encounter something outside
of Deity; we encounter the Unqualified Absolute.

III. The First Source and Center

If you look at everything that is (was, or will be), it adds up, in
the last analysis, to seven kinds of reality; it adds up to the seven equal
Absolutes:

1. The First Source and Center.

2. The Second Source and Center.

3. The Third Source and Center.

4. The Isle of Paradise.

5. The Deity Absolute.

6. The Universal Absolute.

7. The Unqualified Absolute.

God, as the First Source and Center, is really first. There is simply
no exception to this statement. The First Source and Center is infinite
as well as eternal. The only thing that in any way limits him is his own
free will.

God, the Universal Father, is the personality of the First Source and
Center. As such, he maintains personal relations with all coordinate and
subordinate sources and centers. He also exercises infinite control over
them. He may never have to use this control. Why should he? These associated
sources and centers work in flawless perfection. But the final control
is there, just the same, even though it may never be used.

The First Source and Center is really first, everywhere. It doesn't
make any difference whether it is in the realm of Deity action or outside
this domain; personal or impersonal activities; working with things that
are in existence, or with things yet to be; working down on the finite
level or up on the infinite. Everything, simply everything, depends for
its existence directly or indirectly on the First Source and Center.

The First Source and Center is related to the universe in the following
different ways:

1. The Physical Universe. The gravity that holds the material creation
together is tied in to the under surface of the Isle of Paradise. This
is the gravity center for the universe of universes. For this reason, the
person of the Father never moves in relation to this gravity center. But
the gravity center is on the nether or material side of Paradise. The Father
lives on the upper or spiritual side of Paradise.

2. The Intellectual Universe. The mind forces of the universes come
together (finally) in the Infinite Spirit. But there are also secondary
mind centers. The kind of mind that operates in the superuniverses (the
cosmic mind) centers in the Seven Master Spirits. The developing mind of
the Supreme Being centers in Majeston on Paradise. (Majeston is the Paradise
chief of reflectivity.)

3. The Spiritual Universe. All universe spirit forces come together
in the person of the Eternal Son.

4. Capacity for Action. The Deity Absolute provides for unlimited room
or capacity for all future activities on the part of Deity.

5. Infinity Response. There is no end to the extent to which infinity
can respond to Deity action. This unlimited capacity to respond exists
in the Unqualified Absolute.

6. Unified Action-Response. The Universal Absolute perfectly balances
and co-ordinates the other two Absolutes. The Deity Absolute is the Qualified
Absolute; qualified in the sense of having been set apart from the other
Absolute -- the Unqualified Absolute.

7. The Personality universe. All personalities (moral beings) are directly
related to the personality of the Universal Father.

REALITY is not very well understood by human beings -- even by finite
beings much above the human level. What you think of as reality is far
from the whole story. Even when you think of Deity, you cannot understand
it. The most of Deity that you ever will really understand is the Supreme
Being. Just the same, there is a whole lot that is behind the Supreme Being.
These things which existed before the Supreme Being are eternal realities
and superfinite realities. We want to tell you something about these eternal
and superfinite realities. But in trying to talk about these things with
you we run into difficulties. We are talking about things outside of time
and space but we have to use your time and space language to talk about
them. So, we have to tell about the happenings of eternity as though they
had taken place in time. We have to distort our story, but if we do not
do this then we can tell you nothing at all.

As a human being would look at the way things originally got started,
it happened this way: The I AM was, so to speak, imprisoned by infinity.
He could not command because there was no "obeyer of commands."
So, he moves away from a part of infinity. This changes the picture. Now
we have two parts of infinity. We have the part he moves into and the part
he moves away from. The part he moves into, he changed; he changed it by
moving into it; this is the Qualified Absolute part of infinity. This is
the part of infinity that commands. The part of infinity he did not move
into, he did not change; this is the Unqualified Absolute part of infinity;
this is the "obeyer of commands." The Qualified Absolute is (at
this point) total Deity, the "giver of commands." The Unqualified
Absolute is total non-Deity, the "obeyer of commands." This dividing
of infinity into two parts produces a tension, a strain. This tension is
relaxed by the appearance of the Universal Absolute (the third Absolute).
The Universal Absolute still acts to equalize the tension between the two
parts of infinity -- the part that the I AM moved into, and the part that
the I AM moved away from.

But the I AM did not stop here. Up to this point he is the Absolute
Person. Now he separates himself from the Absolute Personality; he thus
becomes Father to the Absolute Personality. The Absolute Personality accordingly
becomes the Eternal Son of the Universal Father. While all this was going
on, the Father built the absolute machine -- the Isle of Paradise.

Now we have the Father and Son resident on the Isle of Paradise. The stage
is set for creation. The first creative act of the Father-Son personalizes
as the Infinite Spirit and materializes as the central universe of Havona. Now has the
Father completed his escape from the fetters of infinity. He has not only
escaped from total infinity but also from total Deity.

The Son and the Spirit are now with him in filling up the whole of total Deity. When the Father joins the Son and the Spirit in the Paradise
Trinity, then as the Trinity they do fill all of Deity. And having done
this, the Father then set about to add to Deity. He set in motion growth,
evolution, and experience so that additional Deity could appear -- Supreme,
Ultimate, and Absolute Deity.

The concept of the I AM, however helpful, is hardly factual, But you
need this concept. You need it because you cannot think outside of time,
or space, or finite realities. You cannot understand eternity. You carrot
grasp something that has no beginning and no ending. To a human being,
everything has to have a start. That is, everything except the ONE UNCAUSED
-- the original cause of all other causes. So we give you this concept
of the I AM. We tell you this story of a time when the I AM was completely
alone. But now we must add to the story: The Eternal Son and the Infinite
Spirit are just as eternal as is the Universal Father; no more so and not
less so. In other words, there never was a time when the I AM was not the
Father of the Son and, with him, of the Spirit.

The Infinite. This term has real meaning; it is not a concession to
the limitations of your thinking. We use it when we want to suggest the
unlimited "firstness" of the First Source and Center. The concept
of the I AM is something you have to have in order to answer the question
"How did things ever get started in the, first place?" It is
not a factual concept. But the term "the Infinite" really means
something. The Universal Father really does have free will and there are
simply no limitations on his free will. When we think of him in this way
we also sometimes use the term "'the Father-Infinite."

We all have trouble in understanding the full meaning of the term "the
Father-Infinite." None of us really has a big enough mind to really
grasp what "the Father-Infinite" really means. And then again,
the Universal Father does not appear as the Infinite on less-than-infinite
levels. We believe that there are only two beings who really know the Father
as an infinity. To the rest of us such a belief is an act of faith.

IV. Universe Reality

As we look at the universe today, we see different kinds of reality;
it is not all just the same. Reality gets started because the Universal
Father decided to start it. From our standpoint there are three main kinds
of reality:

1 . Undeified reality. In general, this is the material side of creation.
It is the part of creation that is not personal. This sort of reality also
suggests something that could not even be made personal. In the final analysis,
this kind of reality runs out into the presence of the Unqualified Absolute
-- the part of infinity that the I AM moved away from.

2. Deified reality. In the main, this is the personal side of creation.
It has to do with personality from the bottom to the top, from the lowest
finite to the highest infinite, If something is even personalizable, then
it falls in this general category. But deified reality also goes beyond
personality. (Remember that the absoniters are superpersonal.) Deified
reality finally winds up in the presence of the Deity Absolute -- The part
of infinity that the I AM moved into.

3. Interassociated reality. Reality is suppose deified or undeified.
But to beings below the level of Deity there exists a borderline zone.
Deified and undeified realities seem to be mixed up and blended. This interassociated
reality seems to be the province of the Universal Absolute -- the third
Absolute who appeared to equalize the tension between the other two.

This is the primal concept of original reality: The Father starts it
and keeps it up as a going concern. The basic and original split in reality
is between deified reality and undeified reality -- between the Deity Absolute
and the Unqualified Absolute. The original relationship is the tension
between these two Absolutes. This tension which the Father caused is completely
relieved by the Universal Absolute (the third Absolute). This is how the
Universal Absolute came into being, by compensating this tension).

From the viewpoint of time and space, you can further subdivide reality:

1 . Actual and Potential. Some things are already here; others are yet
to come. For example, the Eternal Son is complete and final as a spiritual
being. But mortal man is hardly a spiritual being, at the present time,
man is a potential spiritual being.

2. Absolute and Subabsolute. Whatever is absolute is from eternity;
it has always been; it has nothing whatsoever to do with time. Subabsolute
realities are of two kinds: First of all there are absonites. Absonite
realities have a relationship to both time and eternity; they occupy an
in-between zone. And then, there are finites. Finite realities do exist
in space and do have a beginning in time.

3. Existential and Experiential. That which knows before experience
is existential; that which grows by virtue of experience is experiential.
The Paradise Deities are existential in nature. The Supreme and the Ultimate
are experiential in nature.

4. Personal and Impersonal. The expansion of Deity, the expression of
personality, and the evolution of the. universes -- all these things are
forever flowing in channels which the Father has provided. There are two
main channels, personal and impersonal. The Father made these channels
when he created Paradise alongside the Eternal Son. Paradise is the impersonal
pattern; it starts the stream flowing in the impersonal channel. The Son
is the pattern personality; he starts the stream flowing in the personal
channel.

PARADISE. This word can be used as either an adjective or a noun. In
this paragraph we want to discuss it as an adjective. We can refer to Paradise
forces and energies. We speak of the Paradise gravity center. We can talk
about Paradise Deities. We may speak of Paradise divinity, Paradise personality,
or Paradise energy -- spiritual, mindal, or material. Everything started
at Paradise, but Paradise (the central Isle) did not start everything.

The Isle of Paradise. Now we want to define Paradise as a noun. This
central Isle is the machine which the Father personally built. He built
this machine for the same reason that any personality builds a machine.
He built it to do a machine-like job of controlling the material universes.
Since the Father is absolute, so also is his machine absolute. It is the
center of his system of gravity control of the universes. Paradise does
not move. It is the only stationary thing in the universe of universes.
The Isle of Paradise has a universe location; it can be physically reached
if you travel in the right direction and have the means of transport. But
the Isle of Paradise is not in space; space comes to its inner boundary
just before reaching Paradise. Paradise is surrounded by something, but
that "something" is not space. All the matter and energy of the
material universes came from Paradise. This is also true of all past and
of all future universes. This nuclear Isle of Light came into being by
the acts of Deity. But Paradise is not Deity. Neither are the material
creations a part of Deity; they are a consequence of Deity action..

Paradise is not a creator; it does not create anything at all. But there
is nothing else exactly like it when it comes to exercising control over
many things that go on in the universes. To some extent it reacts to what
goes on in the universes. But it does not react nearly so much as it controls.
Everywhere you go, Paradise influences the doings of everybody that has
anything to do with force, energy, and power. There is nothing else like
Paradise in all the universes. Paradise represents nothing and nothing
represents Paradise. We have nothing else to compare it to. It is just
Paradise.

V. PERSONALITY REALITIES

Let's go back and talk about deified reality again. (Deified reality
is the part of infinity that the I AM moved into.) There are many subdivisions
of deified reality. Personality realities make up one of these subdivisions.
As you would visualize personality reality,

it would start out with the type of mind that has qualities of worship
and wisdom. This is the human and the midwayer type of mind. It goes up
through morontia and spiritual levels of growth to where you reach finality
of personality status. This is the way human beings and mid wayers, and
other kindred creatures grow. But there are many other types of personalities
that do not grow in just this way.

Reality can be expanded without limit. Personalities can be infinitely
varied. Both reality and personality can become related to Deity. Both
can be eternally stabilized. There is a limit to the changes that can be
made in nonpersonal reality. But we know of no limitations as to how far
a personality can advance and grow.

When personalities really grow up and reach advanced levels of attained
experience, it becomes more and more possible for them to associate together.
Within limits, they may even be able to create something new, and someone
new. Even God and man--divine nature and human nature -- can live together
in the same personality. Christ Michael proves this for he is right now
still the Son of Man as well as the Son of God.

Below the level of infinity, any two personalities may develop the ability
to associate. They may even develop the ability to create together. This
goes even beyond personality as such. It also takes in prepersonal and
superpersonal beings. The prepersonal, the personal, and the superpersonal
are all linked together. There are three things that link them together:
First of all, they can work together, sooner or later. Then, second, they
can all progress and grow. And lastly, third, they have capacity to be
cocreational. But there is a sharp line between these three relationships
and something that is impersonal. Something that is impersonal never gets
to be personal as a matter of growth. Personality never appears spontaneously.
Personality is always the gift of the Paradise Father. Personality is put
in on top of energy; it is something that is added to a living energy system.
Nonliving energy patterns may have identity, but they never have personality.

What personality is, is a secret of the Universal Father. He gives it,
and knows what the destiny of personality is. The Eternal Son is the absolute
personality. The Eternal Son knows the secrets of spirit energy and all
about how morontia spirits become perfected spirits. The Conjoint Actor
is the spirit-mind personality. He is the source of intelligence, reason,
and the universal mind. But the Isle of Paradise is neither personal nor
spiritual. The Isle of Paradise is the essence of the universal body. It
is the where all physical matter cane from. It is also the master pattern
that was copied in the building of the material creations.

These four qualities of universal reality could be described as matter,
mind, spirit, and personality. Human beings know about them as follows:

1. Body. The material or physical organism of man. The living electro-chemical
mechanism of animal nature and of animal origin.

2. Mind. The part of the living body that thinks, senses, and feels.
This includes both the conscious and unconscious levels of mind. This is
the intelligence and the emotions which reach up through worship and wisdom
to the spirit level.

3. Spirit. This is the divine spirit that lives in man's mind. This
divine spirit is called a Thought Adjuster. This spirit is immortal. It
is not a personality; it is prepersonal. It has a chance to become a part
of man's personality if that human being chooses to survive.

4. Soul. The soul of man is something that is built up by experience.
When a human being chooses to do the will of the Father in heaven, then
the indwelling spirit becomes the father of something new. The human mind
is the mother of this same new reality. This new reality is the child of
the indwelling spirit and of the human mind. It is neither material nor
spiritual. It is something in between -- morontial. This is the emerging
soul. It is intended to be immortal. it can survive mortal death and begin
the long ascent to Paradise.

5. Personality. The personality of a human being is neither body, mind,
nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality does not change; everything
else in a creature's experience does change. Personality unifies everything
that goes to make up a creature. Personality is something unique; it is
something which the Father gives; he gives it to the living associated
energies of matter, mind, and spirit. Personality survives with the survival
of the morontial soul.

6. Morontia. There is a big gap between matter and spirit. Many things
exist in this in-between zone. We call these in-between realities "morontia."
This word can be used to describe any morontia reality -- personal or impersonal,
living or nonliving. The warp of morontia is spiritual; its woof is physical.

VI. Energy and Pattern

There is a circuit, called the personality circuit, that goes all over
the universes and that centers in the Father. All personalities are in
that circuit. This is the way we tell if a being has personality. If he
is in the Father's personality circuit, then that being has personality.
If he is not in this circuit, then he does not have the kind of personality
that comes from the Father. Similarly, we can use other circuits to tell
spirit, mind, and matter. If something responds to the spirit circuit of
the Eternal Son, then we know that it is spiritual in nature. If something
will respond to the mind circuit of the Infinite Spirit, then we know that
this particular thing is mind. If something responds to gravity, then we
know that it is matter. All of the gravity circuits finally tie in to the
big gravity center on the underside of the Isle of Paradise. If anything
responds to any kind of material gravity, then we know that it is something
that once came from the Isle of Paradise. It is matter or material energy
of some kind or other.

ENERGY. We use the word "energy" to mean more than just material
energy. We speak of spiritual energy, of mindal energy, as well as of material
energy. We use the word "force" in just the same way: spiritual
force, mindal force, or cosmic (material) force. We use the word "power"
in two ways: Material energy goes through different stages of development.
The beginning forms of energy would hardly register on the instruments
which human beings have developed. Neither does this beginning form of
energy respond to the gravity which human beings know about. But later
on, this beginning form of energy gets along to the place where it does
respond to gravity (as you know gravity). When it gets down to this stage
then we call it power. This stage is the electronic stage; atoms are beginning
to form. But then we also use the word "power" in another sense:
We use it to mean sovereignty as "sovereign power." We have to
give special meanings to these three words -- force, energy, and power.
You just do not have enough words in the English language to cover the
situation. So, we have to take some of your regular words and give them
special meanings. Let's talk about these three words as they apply to the
material side of creation.

Physical energy. We use the term "physical energy" in several
ways: If something moves, that is physical energy in action. If some thing
acts in any way, that is physical energy in action. And then again, if
some thing is not acting but could act, it still has physical energy. For
example, a storage battery may not be doing anything; but it could start
your car; even when it is not doing anything it still has some physical
energy inside of it; but this energy is potential (not actual) until you
step on the starter and put it into action. So, we use the term "physical
energy" when we want to talk about material motion, action or potential.

When we want to be more specific about physical energy and what it does,
then we break it down into three further terms. We use the terms "cosmic
force," "emergent energy," and "universe power,"
We use these terms with the following meanings:

1. Cosmic force. If you remember, we have told you that all of material
universes came from the Isle of Paradise. But the new Universes are not
flowing out of Paradise piecemeal. The whole of material creation did flow
out of Paradise back in eternity. Havona, the central universe, became
immediately real. But there was then nothing outside of Havona, nothing
except space in which to build the superuniverses (and, later on, the outer
universes). Where did the rest of the "stuff" of creation go
to? It appears that it flowed from Isle of Paradise into the grasp of the
Unqualified Absolute. (You remember that the Unqualified Absolute is the
part of infinity that the I AM moved away from.) Ever since that time,
the Unqualified Absolute has been slowly releasing little by little, giving
up what it once got from Paradise. As the Unqualified Absolute releases
the "stuff" of material creation, so are the new universes born
in time and space. But, when the Unqualified Absolute first releases this
"stuff" of material creation it is not, at that stage, responsive
even to Paradise gravity. In this very early stage, we call the "stuff'
of material creation "cosmic force."

2. Emergent Energy. Later on in the developmen tof the "stuff" of material creation, it becomes responsive to Paradise gravity. When
it does respond to Paradise gravity, we call it "emergent energy."
It has "emerged" from the grasp of the Unqualified Absolute.
But this emergent energy is still not responsive to gravity, as human beings
know gravity. It would not respond to the gravity pull of your world --
just to the gravity center on nether Paradise. This emergent energy is
the "stuff' of material creation just before you get matter -atoms
and electrons.

3. Universe power. Now we have gotten down to the place where you understand
material energy. Universe power does respond to gravity as you know about
gravity. It still responds (in a general way) to the Paradise gravity center,
but it also responds directly to the gravity pull of planets and suns.
This is the stage of electrons, and protons, and atoms, and motion -- all
as human beings understand such things.

Mind. Wherever mind appears then you can know that some living being
has done something to put mind there. First of all you have to have a living
energy system and then mind can be put into that energy system. This is
true no matter how high you go. Humans have mind added to a material energy
system (the body). Seraphim have mind added to a spiritual energy system
(the seraphic form). If the energy system has also been given personality
(by the Father), then mind acts as a cushion between spirit and matter.
It reaches out and ties spirit and matter together. For this reason we
recognize three kinds of "light" -- material light, intellectual
insight, and spirit luminosity.

Light. When we speak of spirit luminosity, we am using a figure of speech.
You do the same thing when you speak of "enlightenment" in the
sense of making something understandable. But there is something about
spiritual beings that can only be described as "luminosity."
But this spirit luminosity has nothing to do with intellectual insight
or physical light.

Pattern. Here is another word we should talk about. Matter, mind, or
spirit can have a pattern. Any combination of these energies can have a
pattern. A personal being (a personality) has a pattern; an identity has
a pattern; entities and even nonliving matter have patterns.. All of these
things have shape, form, configuration of some sort. But pattern never
reproduces itself. It is not creative. If a pattern repeats, then somebody
has made a copy of an earlier and original pattern.

Pattern determines the shape or form that energy takes. An atom, has
a precise pattern, with a nucleus and with electrons swinging around the
central nucleus. But this pattern or form does not explain what holds the
atom together. Pattern does not control the atom. It is gravity that controls
the atom. Pattern does not control energy; gravity does. Pattern, itself,
does not respond to gravity. Neither does space respond to gravity. But
this does not mean that there is any connection between pattern and space
- just because neither of them do respond to gravity. Space has nothing
to do with pattern; it is something entirely different.. The reason that
pattern does respond to gravity is because there nothing in pattern which
can respond to gravity. If we go back to the atom, we have the nucleus
and the electrons swinging around it. The material mass of nucleus and
the electrons does respond to gravity; pattern has no mass. In a human
being, we have a body that has just so much mass; the body weighs just
so many pounds; this weight in pounds is a measure of the pull of gravity
on this human body. This human being might have a body pattern (appearance)
that you would call beautiful. The "beauty" does not respond
to gravity; the body does. This same comparison is true on the mind and
spirit levels. The reality of any pattern (form) is determined by the stuff
of which it is made.

Pattern is very meaningful though. Patterns differ and it is this very
difference that makes life so interesting. People do not look alike. There
is a general similarity to the human races, but pattern (appearance) makes
each human being look different. The form, or pattern of something sets
it apart from the total of things. It can be recognized and identified
as something individual. This is especially true of the form of a personal
creature. All personal forms tend to individualize -- become different
from any other similar forms. This is true of material beings, morontia
beings, and spiritual beings. They reshape their forms. Even the character
of a human being tends to become imprinted on his facial expression. Why
does this take place? Why do appearances tend to individualize? Well, it
is not because of anything inherent in energy (material, mindal, or spiritual).
It goes way back to the beginning of things. It goes way back to the personality
of God and to the mechanism of Paradise. God made Paradise, the pattern
of patterns; he gave it the "shape" it has. And ever since that
time personality has been expressing itself in determining the "shape" of things, in creating new and individual
patterns.

Pattern is something that is copied; a master design from which copies
can be made. Eternal Paradise is the absolute of patterns; it is the first
"shape" to be produced by God. The Eternal Son is the pattern
personality. The Universal Father is the direct ancestor-

source of both the Son and of Paradise. And here is something interesting
to note: Paradise does not bestow pattern and the Son cannot bestow personality.
Both have limitations. The Father has escaped from these limitations by
becoming the cause of Paradise and the parent of the Son.

VII. The Supreme Being

Let's go back to the earlier parts of this Foreword and take up the
story of Deity again. We want to talk about Deity from a little different
angle. If we consider Deity from the standpoint of eternity (especially
past eternity) we can see some new relationships. From this standpoint
we can see that all of Deity has not existed from eternity. Deity divides
into two groupings: First of all, there is Deity that has existed from
eternity. And then there is Deity that has not existed from eternity. God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit have existed from eternity;
that is why we call them "existential; " they have always been.
But this is not true of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the
Absolute. These three Deities are becoming; they are coming into being.
They are actualizing, growing, and expanding. They did not exist back in
the days when there was only the central universe, back before the seven
superuniverses were started. They are coming into being since these distant
days. We speak of modern times as the "post-Havona epochs." By
this, we mean the times since the beginning of' the seven superuniverses;
the times since Havona is no longer alone -- the only creation.

It is in these post-Havona epochs that God the Supreme, God Ultimate,
and God the Absolute are making their appearance. They are appearing on
different levels as the master universe grows and expands. They are appearing
in time and space and they are also appearing in other ways. For example:
The Supreme is appearing as a time-space growth. But the Ultimate is above
time and space Ultimate transcends time and space. These three now appearing,
or growing Deities are not past eternals (they have not always been). But
they are future eternals (they always will be). They are coming into being
through co-operation with the original three Paradise Deities --Father,
Son, and Spirit. They grow as they become powerful in the universes. They
become powerful by putting together all of the creative work that is going
on in the growing universes. In so doing, they gain experience. And this
is why we call God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute
"experiential Deities."

So, we come to the understanding that, from this standpoint, there are
two kinds of Deities:

1. Existential. These are beings of eternal existence. They are from
the eternal past, they exist in the eternal future. God the Father, God
the Son and God the Spirit are existential.

2. Experiential. These are beings who are not from the eternal past.
They are coming into existence in the post-Havona present. They will continue
to exist throughout all future eternity. They are not past-eternal; they
are future-eternal. God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute
are experiential Deities.

The Father, Son and Spirit are existential. So far as their actual being
is concerned they are truly existential. Presumably if they could express
themselves in some new way, then they too could experience. The Supreme
and the Ultimate are wholly experiential. But when we come to God the Absolute
we have to be careful: God the Absolute and the Deity Absolute are terms
expressing different aspects of the same reality. The Deity Absolute is
that part of infinity the I AM moved into. But in this sense, the Deity
Absolute is potential; an emptiness which can be filled by the acts of
Deity. As such a pure potential, the Deity Absolute is from past eternity,
is existential. But, when we use the term "God the Absolute"
we mean to indicate that this pure potential, this original emptiness,
has become filled up by experience. In this sense, God the Absolute is
also experiential. Basically, all Deity is eternal. But only the Father,
Son, Spirit are completely eternal. All other Deity personalities have
an origin, but they are eternal in destiny.

Way back in eternity, the Father expressed himself in the Son and in
the Spirit. But the Father did not stop there. He has ever since been expressing
himself in new ways. He has been expressing himself by personalizing certain
levels of Deity that were not originally personal. He has been expressing
himself on the finite, the absonite, the absolute levels of experience.
He is thus expressing himself as God the Supreme, and as God the Ultimate,
and as God the Absolute. These three experiential Deities are not now fully
in existence. They are in process of coming into being; they are growing.

God the Supreme. There is a presence of the Supreme in the central universe
of Havona. This presence is a reflection of the three Paradise Deities
-- Father, Son, and Spirit. The Paradise Deities and the Supreme are at
work out in time and space, out in the seven superuniverses. They are working
as God the Sevenfold out in time and space. (We will talk about God the
Sevenfold in the next section.) At any rate, this work that they are doing
out in time and space is building up the power of The Supreme Being. When
we think of this growing power of the Supreme, we use a special word, "Almighty."
When we think of the Supreme working as a powerful Deity in the grand universe,
we speak of him as the Almighty Supreme. So we have the three Deities on
Paradise producing the spirit person of God the Supreme in Havona and building
up his power as the Almighty Supreme in the grand universe. These two phases
of growth, spirit person and powerful Almighty, are flowing together. They
are uniting as one Lord, as the Supreme Being.

This whole process is a continuation of the Father's escape from the
limitations of being infinite and absolute. First of all, he escapes from
infinity. Next, through the Son and the Spirit, he escaped from the limitations
of being total Deity. Now, in the Supreme Being, Father is escaping from
eternity. Now in the Supreme Being the Father can realize what it is like
to be Deity and still to work in time in space, to know what it is like
to grow and to experience.

The Supreme Being has not created anyone directly -- with one exception.
He did create Majeston, the Paradise chief of reflectivity. He does work
as a co-ordinator of everything that is going on in the Grand universe.
He ties together all of the activities of creators and of creatures in
the grand universe. There are the three Deities on Paradise; there are
also numerous subordinate Creators working out in time and space; the Supreme
Being co-ordinates the work of all of them. When the Supreme Being has
finished his growth, his basic nature will combine the finite and the infinite.
His nature will unite the kind of power that is earned by experience with
the kind of spirit personality that comes from Paradise Deity.

The Supreme Being is doing something more than just growing. He also
is acting as a director of what is going on in time and space as it applies
to finite beings. What is he directing towards? Well, it is a sort of mobilization.
He is encouraging the union of time-space experience with spirit personality.
He is trying to bring about more and more of this sort of putting together
of power and personality. He is trying to foster the union of experiential
power with spirit person. Why is he doing this? He is trying to break through
the barrier that separates the finite level of creation from the absonite
level of creation. He is trying to build a bridge over which finite creatures
may someday cross to the absonite level. He is trying to help finite creatures
become more than finite creatures. He is trying to help them become supercreatures.

VIII. God the Sevenfold

Human beings and similar finite creatures are simply so far away from
Paradise Deity that they need a ladder to get there. Because of this the
Universal Father has provided just such a ladder. He has made it possible
for creatures to approach him in seven steps. Here are the steps:

1. The Paradise Creator Sons

2. The Ancients of Days

3. The Seven Master Spirits

4. The Supreme Being

5. God the Spirit

6. God the Son

7. God the Father

This is how God works in time and space. This is how he works in the
seven superuniverses. It is through these seven steps that human beings
can eventually get to the presence of God, who is spirit. This sevenfold
Deity is Deity as man comes in contact with Deity on the way to Paradise.
The work that is done by this sevenfold Deity adds up to the growing power
of the Supreme Being. As human beings come in contact with God the Sevenfold,
they start out by discerning and recognizing the divinity of the Creator
Son of their local Universe. Later on, they reach the Ancients of Days
of their superuniverse. Then they encounter some one of the Seven Master
Spirits -- the one who supervises the superuniverse the ascender came from.
Finally the ascender attains the Universal Father on Paradise.

You will remember that the grand universe is made up of Havona plus
the seven superuniverses. Well, Deity is working in the grand universe
in three different ways and all of them at the same time. First of all,
the Paradise Trinity is working in the grand universe. Here the Trinity
is working down on the finite level, working in relation to the Supreme;
so we call this the working of the Trinity of Supremacy. The Trinity of
Supremacy is the Paradise Trinity Father, Son, and Spirit working on the
finite level. Now, the Supreme Being is also working in the grand universe;
this is the second way in which Deity is in action on the finite level.
Third, and last, God the Sevenfold is at work in the grand universe. So
we say that the grand universe is a threefold Deity domain. Three Deities
are working here -- the Trinity of Supremacy, God the Sevenfold, and the
Supreme Being. The Supreme Being is especially involved in all this work.
First of all, he gets his personality and spirit attributes from the Paradise
Trinity; this is the spirit person of God the Supreme in Havona. But he
gets his growing power as the Almighty ruler of the superuniverses from
somewhere else. This almighty power is building up through all the work
of three groups who belong to God the Sevenfold -- the Creator Sons, the
Ancients of Days, and the Seven Master Spirits. The Supreme Being is the
immediate God of evolutionary creatures. He evolves just as these creatures
evolve. His power as Almighty grows right along with the growth of the
creatures of the seven superuniverses. This almighty power of the Supreme
and the spirit person of the Supreme are becoming one and the same reality.
Both are coming together in a complete and final union -- as the Supreme
Being.

We have already told you how human beings are helped to climb up to
God by the ladder of God the Sevenfold. The Creator Sons start out helping
human beings on this long journey from death to immortality. In this way
a finite creature eventually can attain the embrace of the Infinite --
can find God the Father on Paradise. The Supreme Being is also concerned
with the further and continuing growth of finite beings. He is trying to
put everything finite together in such a way as to build a bridge across
from the finite to the absonite. He is trying to help finite creatures
sometime try to reach up to absonite levels of existence. If they can ever
get to these absonite levels, then perhaps they can try to learn something
about God the Ultimate. We think that this is going to take place a very
long time from now -- this climbing upward from the finite to the absonite.
When it does take place, we feel that the Creator Sons and their associated
Divine Ministers are going to take part in it. They may not always stay
in the local universes. But we believe that the Ancients of Days and the
Seven Master Spirits will always stay just where they are; they are the
rulers of the seven superuniverses.

God the Sevenfold began to work when the seven superuniverses were started.
We think that the work of God the Sevenfold will someday expand out into
the now uninhabited universes of outer space. There are four really big
zones in outer space. They encircle the grand universe and they get larger
and larger the farther out you go. We call them the primary, secondary,
tertiary, and quartan space levels. Sometime people are going to live out
in these now inhabited space levels. Government will be provided for them.
Their inhabitants will stream inward to Paradise in the search for Deity.
But it will be a somewhat different search for Deity than the one that
is going on now in the grand universe. Now creatures are making a finite
and evolutionary approach to Deity. Someday, the outer-spacers will try
to make a more-than-finite approach to Deity. They will try to make a transcendent
and absonite approach to Deity. They will be looking for the same Deity
(the Universal Father), but they will be looking for him on a new and higher
level.

IX. God the Ultimate

The Supreme Being grows by putting together everything that is going
on in the grand universe. He is putting together divinity, and energy,
and personality activities. These activities are taking place in time and
space. Now God the Ultimate is growing in a similar way. But he is growing
on a higher level and he is reaching out to take in a wider range of universe
activity. The Supreme is growing in time and space; the Ultimate is growing
in transcended time and space. The Supreme is growing in the grand universe
arena; this takes in Havona and the seven superuniverses. The Ultimate
is growing in the whole master universe arena; this takes in the grand
universe and the four outer space levels. The Ultimate is putting things
together on his higher level and in his larger sphere something like the
Supreme is doing on a lower level and within a smaller sphere. When The
Supreme completes his growth, it means that Deity has completed growth
on the first level of creative self-realization; this is the finite time-space
level. When the Ultimate completes his growth, it means that Deity has
completed growth on the second level of creative realization; this is the
absonite level of super-time and transcended space.

The completed growth of the Ultimate also means something else: It means
that a new Trinity, an experiential Trinity has come into being on the
absonite level. The Paradise Trinity is existential; this new Trinity we
refer to as the "first experiential Trinity." ((We will tell
you more about this first experiential Trinity in Section XII of this Simplification.)

At any rate, the completed growth of the Ultimate means that everything
which could be expressed by experience on the absonite level has been expressed.
It has been expressed as a new unified Deity, as the Ultimate Deity. Paradise-absonite
realities have been expressed. They have been expressed on a certain value-level.
This value-level can be described as follows: it is a level on which things
and beings "eventuate," it is a level on which time is transcended,
and it is a level on which space is transcended. This development of the
Ultimate has some meaning for all of us and for all of you. You have a
chance to take part in this growth of the Ultimate. In taking part in this
growth you may grow up to absonite levels yourselves. You will be helped
to do this by God the Sevenfold and also by the Supreme Being. In doing
all of this you will be given a chance to be of ultimate service in the
universes and to achieve ultimate destiny for yourselves.

God the Ultimate is a term which we use to mean personal Deity working
on levels of absonite divinity. This also means working in supertime, or
transcended time; this is something outside of time but not yet in eternity.
This also means working in transcended space; this is something above space
but still short of infinity. God the Supreme is a supreme evolution of
Deity. God the Ultimate is a supersupreme eventuation of Deity. When finite
beings want to understand the Paradise Trinity as a unified Deity, it is
the Supreme that they will be able to understand. The Ultimate is the unification
of the Paradise Trinity which can be understood by absonite beings.

What is the Universal Father doing in all this business of the growth
of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute? Well, remember
the three levels of finite, absonite, and absolute? The Father has set
in motion this whole business of evolutionary Deity. It is working on all
three levels at the same time. It putting together new experiencing personality
and new earned power on each of these levels. It is bringing three new
Deities into existence.

There are three past-eternal Deities -- the Universal Father, the Eternal
Son, and the Infinite Spirit. In past eternity they were alone on Paradise.
In future eternity, they are going to be joined by three associate evolutionary
Deities. These three evolutionary Deities are God the Supreme, God the
Ultimate, and (possibly) God the Absolute.

God the Supreme and God the Ultimate are now evolving in the experiential
universes. They are not existential; they have not existed .from past eternity.
They are future eternals. The Supreme is a future eternal, working within
the limitations of time and space, The Ultimate is a future-eternal, working
within the limits of supertime and transcended space. When we think about
the attributes and powers of these evolutionary Deities, we do not think
of them as infinite (like the Paradise Deities). We think of these evolutionary
Deities as having supreme attributes and as having ultimate attributes

Possibly they have supreme-ultimate attributes -- the attributes of
one multiplied by the attributes of the other. But both of them came into
being a finite number of years ago; they have had historic universe origins.
They will never have an end. They do have personality beginnings. They
have been derived from eternal and infinite Deity potentials. But neither
Supreme nor Ultimate are eternal nor infinite -- in the full meaning of
those words.

X. God the Absolute

The Deity Absolute and God the Absolute are related, but they are not
the same. Let's go back to our discussion of Reality. Do you remember that
we talked about how the I AM moved away from a part of infinity and into
another part of infinity? Well, the part that he moved into, we call the
Qualified Absolute ''-- "qualified" because he moved into it.
We still more often refer to this Qualified Absolute as the Deity Absolute.
The two terms are not quite the same, but they are close. This Deity Absolute
is the zone or area in which all Deity acts -- Father, Son, Spirit, and
Trinity. When you think of the relationship of the Deity Absolute to God
the Absolute, you might think of it this way: The Deity Absolute is a foundation
on which God the Absolute is being erected. The foundation is eternal and
existential -- it never had a beginning. The structure that is being erected
on this foundation is experiential. It certainly does have a beginning.
Here, then, is the picture: We have an existential foundation, the Deity
Absolute. On this foundation there is being erected an experiential structure;
this structure is God the Absolute. The Deity Absolute, the foundation,
is before and after all experience. God the Absolute; would be experienceable,
would be knowable, in some manner or other, by experiencing beings. If
and when God the Absolute comes into existence, it will be because a second
experiential Trinity has come into full being. You will remember that we
talked about a "first experiential Trinity" in connection with
God the Ultimate; well, we are now talking about a "second experiential
Trinity" in connection God the Absolute. (We will tell you about both
of these experiential trinities in Section XII of this Simplification.
It is enough for this discussion to note that they are something different
from the Paradise Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit.

If this second experiential trinity, the Absolute Trinity, should ever
go to work in a full sense, then it would really mean something. What would
it mean? It would mean that divinity was no longer being revealed to the
universes in a partial or relative sense -- in a diluted way. It would
mean that divinity (truth, beauty, and goodness) was being revealed in
an absolute sense -- in an undiluted way. It would mean something more.
It would also indicate that meanings were completely unified. How would
meanings be unified? Well, for example, the love of God and the justice
of the Trinity are bound to look different to a human being. The law of
Deity and the love of God do not always look alike out in time and space.
Material gravity and spiritual love seem to obey different laws. If meanings
were completely unified, then all these things would be seen to be acting
in accordance with a basic unified law. So, we have the picture of divinity
being revealed in an absolute (undiluted) sense and meanings being unified
in a final sense. But how about values? We are not so sure that values
could all be tied together. Why not? Well, we come back to the fact that
God the Absolute is being erected on the Foundation of the Deity Absolute.
The Deity Absolute is the Qualified Absolute -- that part of infinity into
which the I AM moved. We have never been informed that this Qualified Absolute
is the same as the Infinite....

But of this much we are sure. You cannot get to Absolute values without
going beyond ultimate destinies. This is the only way to get to absolute
meanings and final spirituality. And until these are reached there is no
use even talking about absolute values.

You will remember that we told you that God the Ultimate is comprehensible
to absonite beings. Well, there are beings that are higher than absonite.
We call them superabsonite. God the Absolute is understandable to such
superabsonite beings. But we cannot even talk about God the Absolute without
getting involved in the Deity Absolute. Now we are getting into something
that is far above even our powers of understanding. We therefore hesitate
to become deeply involved in these matters which are so very far above
the level of human comprehension.

XI. The Three Absolutes

Let's go back and talk some more about how everything got started in
the first place. We told you the story one way: We told you the story by
starting out with the three Absolutes. We could just as well tell the story
by ending up with the three Absolutes. Suppose we tell you the story of
creation in this other way: This time we will start out with the Universal
Father and the Eternal Son. When they had their first united plan for action,
this act brought the God of Action into existence. The God of Action, of
course, is the Infinite Spirit. When the Infinite Spirit began to function,
then the central universe of Havona was born. When Havona came into existence,
the Father did several things: He sent out his creative thought into the
expression or word of his Son. He also worked with the Son in the act of
their Conjoint Executive, the Infinite Spirit. And then, he did something
else. He continued to be actually present in Havona. But he stopped being
present in just that same way outside of Havona. He separated his Havona
presence from his presence everywhere else. This is because Havona is a
complete and finished creation and everywhere else was unfinished -- in
fact, at that distant time there wasn't anything outside of Havona except
space. In Havona, the Father is an actual presence. Elsewhere, he is more
of a potential presence -- an emptiness-that-can-be-filled. This emptiness-that-can-be-filled,
this infinity potential hides the presence of the Father outside of Havona.
He is revealed in Havona, he is hidden elsewhere. He is space-hidden in
the Unqualified Absolute. His divinity is hidden in the Deity Absolute.
And there is still a third Absolute. This is the co-ordinating Absolute,
the Universal Absolute. It is in the Universal Absolute that the Father
hides his nature as the unchanging Infinite. This Universal Absolute so
acts as to make the other two Absolutes seem to be like one Absolute.

Now, at last, God has got room to work in. He has a base of operations
in Havona and he has room in which to create. He can start to express himself
in new ways. He can bring something new into existence. This new thing
is experience. Creations and creatures no longer "flash" into
existence. Now he can begin to create slowly, step by step. He is working
now, not in eternity but in time and by evolution and by experience. This
applies to new physical creations. It also applies to new spiritual creations.
This working in time causes a new activity on the part of the Universal
Absolute. The Universal Absolute now begins to correlate the things of
time and experience with the existential things of eternity. How does this
work? Well, consider what happens when God puts imperfection in the same
universe along with perfection. This produces quite a tension. They are
antagonistic. Infinite perfection could hardly be expected to tolerate
the presence of finite imperfection. Here again, the Universal Absolute
acts as a balance of these tensions. The natural antagonism between infinite
perfection and finite imperfection is exactly counterbalanced by this activity
of the Universal Absolute. Now the First Source and Center can know what
it is to watch sovereign power slowly expand out into the growing superuniverses.
Now, he can be father, not only of the Eternal Son, but also of mortal
man. Now God can even plan to bring into existence Deities that will also
grow by experience. These experiential Deities are God the Supreme, God
the Ultimate, and God the Absolute.

There are three Absolutes: Deity, Unqualified, and Universal. Sometimes
it is not possible to separate the acts of the Deity Absolute and the Unqualified
Absolute. Sometimes they are supposed to work very closely together. Sometimes
they are even supposed to be a combined or co-ordinated single presence.
In these situations, we call this combined presence and combined action
the work of the Universal Absolute.

1. The Deity Absolute. The Deity Absolute is all the time getting things
started, getting them in motion, stirring up activity. The Unqualified
Absolute mechanizes things. What things are involved in these actions?
It is the whole vast cosmos that is involved. It is the universes that
now are. It is all the universes that are coming into being. It is all
the universes that ever could be. And this whole cosmos of past, present,
and future is not growing in any haphazard way; it is supremely unified
and ultimately co-ordinated -- it is fully planned.

The Deity Absolute works in a way that is hard to understand. Perhaps
we can suggest this way of working by saying that it embraces everything.
You know how a person can take care of himself. He can also want to take
care of his family. He may become mayor of a city and try hard to do what
is right for a great metropolis. Let's go on expanding this horizon of
responsibilities. The chief executive of a great nation would try to do
what is good for the whole nation. A Creator Son works for the good of
his whole local universe. The Supreme Being is working for the good of
the whole grand universe. The Deity Absolute is at all times working for
the greatest good of everything -- everywhere. And not just everywhere,
but also everywhen. What the Deity Absolute does today is not only for
the good of all the people of today, but also for the people of tomorrow
-- and for the universes of all the tomorrows. The Deity Absolute is today
just as concerned about a person or a planet or a universe that may not
come into existence for another million or a billion years. A picture has
meaning because it has a frame. You can't put a frame around the work of
the Deity Absolute because the actual frame is infinity and eternity.

In another sense, you should think of the Deity Absolute as a vast room
which the Father has set aside. The Father and his divine associates are
working in this room. This is the "Deity workshop" of the Father.
In this workshop the father and his associates can labor in the eternity
way and also in the time way -- for that matter, in any way they may choose.
But they are always working here as Deity and their work is always known
by the flavor of divinity. This is not the only workshop that the Father
has set up. There is another one. This other workshop is the presence of
the Unqualified Absolute. . This other workshop came into existence by
contrast -- by contrast with the workshop of the Deity Absolute. The Father,
in effect, said that he would work in one workshop as Deity; this is a
qualification or limitation of what the Father would do. So we have the
workshop of the Deity Absolute, the Qualified Absolute. The Father did
not thus limit or qualify his activities in the other workshop. So we call
it the Unqualified Absolute. But do not forget: There is still a third
workshop. This is the workshop of the Universal Absolute. When you think
of all three workshops or rooms, then you are thinking of all the vast
roominess of infinity. The three of them together do reach out to take
in all of infinity. These three workshops contain all of the potential
"stuff" out of which everything actual is made -- matter, mind,
and spirit.

2. The Unqualified Absolute. This workshop has nothing to do with the
activities of Deity, divinity, or personality. Here the Father is working
in a way that is not personal, not Deity, and not divinity. This means
that the Unqualified Absolute is not a person. The Unqualified Absolute
is not Deity. The Unqualified Absolute is not a creator. You see what we
are up against; we keep telling you what this Absolute is "not."
We have a hard time telling you what this Absolute "is." This
mystery is going to be with you even when you have progressed far beyond
the human level. No facts and no truth can penetrate this problem. No experience
and no revelation can clear up this mystery. Even the highest philosophy
is helpless. Even the philosophy of the absoniters breaks down in attempting
to unravel the nature and character of this Unqualified Absolute.

But we can make a few positive statements about the Unqualified Absolute:
This Absolute is a positive reality, a real presence. This presence is
everywhere throughout the grand universe. There is just as much of this
same presence throughout all outer space, the space outside the grand universe
where such a vast amount of physical creation is going on. This presence
is also a space presence, a presence in space. (It is possible, of course,
to have a presence that would not be a space presence -- present but not
taking up any space. The Deity Absolute, for example, is everywhere present,
but is not in space. The Unqualified Absolute is also everywhere present
and is in space.) This presence of the Unqualified Absolute is something
entirely different from some of the speculations of your thinkers in metaphysics
and philosophy. Some of them tend to think of the universe as being more
or less self-acting. Things just happen in certain ways because this is
the way things just happen. But this is simply not so. There is nothing
chancy or haphazard about it. The Unqualified Absolute is on the job --
always and everywhere.

The job of work that is being done is not a job of controlling things
but rather the business of exercising overcontrol. The overcontrol of what?
Well, it is mostly on the physical side. It has to do with force and energy.
It has to do with the things that are in space.-- material things. In this
sort of work, the Unqualified Absolute seems to be working in quite an
unlimited way. But this is not so when we look at life, mind, spirit, and
personality. In this field the work of the Unqualified Absolute is limited
and restricted. And then, of course, the Paradise Trinity of Father, Son
and Spirit is really in control of the work of the Unqualified Absolute.
This Absolute does what the Paradise Trinity wants done.

There are some more things we can tell you that are not true about the
Unqualified Absolute. Some human theologians concentrate so much on the
everywhereness of God that they spread Deity so thin it evaporates. That
is pantheism. Well, the Unqualified Absolute is something entirely different.
Your scientists onetime had an idea that there was something in space itself
that could transmit energy. They called this something "ether."
The Unqualified Absolute has nothing whatever to do with this "ether"
idea. This Absolute seems to have an endless amount of force and energy
which can be pulled out of its grasp and used to build new physical universes.
We know that this Absolute does what the Paradise Trinity says shall be
done. We do not, however, see just how this Absolute is related to spiritual
realities in the universes.

3. The Universal Absolute. Let's go back again to when the I AM moved
away from a part of infinity and into another part of infinity. This caused
infinity to be divided into two parts. There was the part that the I AM
moved into -- the qualified part, the Deity commanding part, the Deity
Absolute, the Qualified Absolute. There was also the part that the I AM
moved away from -- the not-Deity part, the Unqualified Absolute, the "obeyer
of commands." But this is not all there is also the relationship between
these two parts of infinity. So here we have the two parts plus a relationship.
This makes three realities in all. This third reality, this relationship
reality, is the Universal Absolute. The Universal Absolute is the binder
that holds together these two split parts of infinity and keeps all infinity
united. This is what the Universal Absolute did when infinity was divided
by the I AM. This is what the Universal Absolute still does and will always
do.

You see, this dividing of infinity into two parts separates free will
from not-free-will. It separates divinity action from the reactions of
not-divinity. It separates dynamics from statics, change from sameness.
This separation produces a tension. Think of a piece of wood: Split this
piece of wood part way down. Pull the split ends apart. You have a tension.
This is like the tension created by splitting infinity. The Universal Absolute
acts to relax this tension. The split ends stay apart and are still held
together at the base.

Always remember: You cannot know anything about infinity in time. You
have to get to eternity before you can even hope to have a little understanding
about infinity. When we talk about infinity in time-language we can only
talk about a little part of infinity, not about all of it. Neither can
we talk about God's infinite personality in any way that would make sense
to human beings. God's infinite personality is a part of God's infinite
Deity. And you do not know, you do not really understand, very much about
either one. When the I AM split infinity and still left it joined (like
the piece of wood, split at one end and still holding together at the other)
he did something. He produced a real tension; the tension between the Deity
Absolute and the Unqualified Absolute. The Universal Absolute immediately
stepped in to relieve this tension. It is because of all this that we can
have material universes in space. It is because of this that we can have
finite personalities in time. Infinity and absoluteness have been brought
under the Father's control; infinity and absoluteness have been restrained
from crowding out of existence those realities which are not infinite and
not absolute -- human beings, for example.

If infinity, eternity, and absoluteness were not brought under control,
then they would crowd everything else out of existence. you take an empty
bucket, it is really not empty. It is full of air. If you fill it with
water, then the water displaces the air. This is the way it is with creation.
The bucket is like the universe, the air is like finite things and people,
the water is like absoluteness. If absoluteness filled everything then
it would displace all of you and all of us, for none of us is absolute.
What keeps the "water" from filling up the cosmic bucket? It
is the Universal Absolute that does this job. This keeps eternity from
crowding out time. Things finite are protected from being crowded out by
infinity. The cosmic bucket is kept open for the growths and developments
of the future. The Isle of Paradise is restrained from filling up all space.
The personality of God makes room in the universe for other personalities,
even for the lowly personality of man. Now, if you could measure just how
much work the Universal Absolute was doing in keeping the "water"
out of the cosmic bucket you would know something. You would know just
how much "air" was being protected from displacement. If you
knew this then you would know just how much of the present creation was
incomplete, imperfect, and unfinished. This would apply not only to finite
things and people but also to absonite things and people. Since creation
is growing, this work of the Universal Absolute is also growing. We think
that this "protecting work" of the Universal Absolute will continue
to grow indefinitely.

The Universal Absolute is the Father's third workshop. Here the Father
is seeing what can be worked out with split-infinity in a new way. Remember
the stick of wood that we talked about -- split at one end and still joined
together at the other? Well, another way of looking at it is to say that
the Universal Absolute is back at the unsplit end. In this third workshop,
the Father is seeing what can be done about tying time and eternity together.
Here he is working out a union of finite and absolute values. Here he is
seeing what could be done with a united existential-experiential approach
to Deity. This third workshop, the Universal Absolute is really not at
all understandable. The Universal Absolute is, however, a part of Deity.
Do you remember the seven levels we talked about, the seven levels on which
total Deity acted? Well, the Universal Absolute acts on the first three
levels -- static, potential, and associative. But not on the next two levels,
the creative level and the evolutional level. At least this is true as
far as concerns the intelligent personalities that live in the master universe.

The Absolute. The two absolutes -- qualified and unqualified -seem to
be very different. At least this is the way they look to intelligent creatures.
These two Absolutes are perfectly and completely unified by the Third Absolute
-- the Universal Absolute. In the last analysis there is just one Absolute.
From the human and finite viewpoint there are three. From the infinity
viewpoint there is just one. Let's go back to the piece of wood to clear
this up. We split the piece of wood part way down. We pull the split ends
apart. Now we have a Y-shaped piece of wood. It has three parts: stem,
right arm, and left arm. But still it is just one piece of wood.

We never use the word "Absolute" as a negative. We never say
"absolutely not." Neither do we think of the Universal Absolute
as being self-created -- a sort of impersonal God. So far as personalities
are concerned, we know that the Absolute does what the Paradise Trinity
wants done. Deity dominates and commands the Absolute.

XII. The Trinities

The original Trinity is the Paradise Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit.
It is eternal; it has always been. It was really inevitable; it had to
be. Why did it have to be? Let's go back to the beginning of things again.
Do you remember how it was that God first expressed

himself in Paradise and as the Eternal Son? This meant that he separated
things non-personal from things personal. Paradise is the absolute machine;
the Son is the absolute personality. Then what did the Father do? He brought
mind into existence. Mind can build a bridge of relationship between the
spirit person and the non-spirit machine. The God of mind is the Infinite
Spirit, the Deity equal of The Father and the Son. It was inevitable that
these three Deity equals should unite. This union is the Paradise Trinity.

This Trinity is eternal, just like the central universe of Havona. There
are two other Trinities that are coming into existence since the times
of Havona. Why are there exactly two additional trinities? It is because
the Father decided there would be just two additional levels of creation.
He started out with the absolute level of existence. Then he decided to
have two additional levels of existence. He decided to have a finite level.
He also decided to have an absonite level. Power and personality are coming
into existence on each of these two levels. Power and personality tend
to come together in Trinity union.

The Paradise Trinity. This is the eternal Deity union of the Universal
Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit. It always was, is, and
will be; it is an eternal fact of existence; it is existential. But, as
trinity begins to work on the two new levels of existence, then experience
enters into the picture. This is the only Trinity that takes in all infinity.
But, since this Trinity can experience, then Deity can experience. So we
can have experiential Deity. This is why the growing appearance of God
the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute.

The other two trinities we call the "first experiential Trinity"
and the "second experiential Trinity." We also call them the
post-Havona Trinities. Neither of these two trinities can be infinite.
Why? It is because they are made up of derived Deities -- derived Deities
in contrast to the original Deities (Father, Son, and Spirit). These derived
Deities are produced by the Paradise Trinity. In this way God is enriching
the infinity of divinity. He could hardly enlarge the infinity of divinity,
but he can enrich it. He is enriching it with experience. Whose experience?
The experience of creatures and of Creators working on the finite level
of existence and of others working on the absonite level of existence.

A trinity is a basic relationship. It is a basic fact of Deity -- that
Deity unites in Trinity. The work of a Trinity fills the area of Deity
action from border to border. When all of this Trinity work is added up,
it adds up to a total. This total is a new Deity personality. There are
three new totals of experience that are being added up on the three levels
of finite, absonite, and absolute growth. These three totals are God the
Supreme, God the Ultimate, and God the Absolute. These are the three experiential
Deities, the Deities who grow by experience. They get their original start
from the Paradise Trinity, the original Trinity. Their continuing growth
is dependent on three things: First of all they have to work at it themselves.
Second, they are dependent on what the post-Havona Creators do; they are
dependent on the Creator Sons, for example. And third, they are partly
dependent on what the post-Havona Trinities do; they are dependent on the
successes of the first and the second experiential Trinities.

We call these two post-Havona Trinities the Ultimate Experiential Trinity,
and the Absolute Experiential Trinity. Neither one of them is fully in
operation at the present time. They are coming into being. We can tell
you something about them:

1. The Ultimate Trinity. This Trinity is now evolving. When it has completed
its evolution it will be made up of the following beings: The Supreme Being,
The Supreme Creator Personalities, and the Architects of the Master Universe.
You know about the Supreme Being. The Supreme Creator Personalities are
creators who make up the first three levels of God the Sevenfold -- Master
Spirits, Ancients of Days, and Creator Sons. The Architects of the Master
Universe are not finite beings; they are absonite beings. They are neither
creatures nor creators. They are special universe planners. You might think
of them as the intelligent and purposeful and living blueprints of the
master universe. What will happen when this Ultimate Trinity really gets
into operation? It will have a lot to do with completing the growth of
God the Ultimate. This Trinity and God the Ultimate will work in the whole
master universe. This is a very big place in which to work.

2. The Absolute Trinity. This is the second experiential Trinity. It
too is in process of evolution. When it has completed its growth it will
be made up of the following beings: God the Supreme, God the Ultimate,
and the unrevealed Consummator of Universe Destiny and we are not going
to tell you anything about him. This Absolute Trinity works on personal
and on superpersonal levels. (Remember that absoniters are superpersonal).
It also works right up to the borders of the non-personal. If it could
ever complete its growth then we would have God the Absolute building up
by experience on the foundations of the Deity Absolute.

We can see how the Ultimate Trinity can complete its growth. We do not
see how the Absolute Trinity could complete its growth. How can you reach
the end of infinity? If this Absolute Trinity can never complete growth
then how can God the Absolute ever come into being? But, perhaps there
is another way besides growth. Back in past eternity, the Father and the
Son brought the original Trinity into existence by trinitization. This
produced the Infinite Spirit on the one hand and brought about a peculiar
union of the Father-Son on the other hand. We venture to speculate that
God the Supreme and God the Ultimate might also trinitize at some remotely
future time. If they ever did, then this act might trinitize God the Absolute
on the one hand while bringing about a peculiar union of the Supreme-Ultimate
on the other hand.

The philosophers of the universes sometimes talk about a Trinity of
Trinities. This would be a Trinity made up of the three Trinities -- Paradise
Trinity, Ultimate Trinity, and Absolute trinity. It would be both existential
and experiential. It would be a Trinity Infinite. If Trinities always result
in new Deity personalizations, then what would the Trinity of Trinities
personalize as? Possibly the function of this Trinity would reveal the
personality of the Universal Father in an infinite way -- as the I AM.
But, regardless of all this speculation, the Paradise Trinity is potentially
infinite because the Universal Father actually is infinite.

Acknowledgment

The papers that follow this Foreword are going to tell you about the
character of the Universal Father and something about the nature of his
Paradise associates. We are also going to attempt to describe the perfect
central universe and the seven superuniverses that circle around it. In
telling you this story, we have to carry out the instructions given us
by our superiors, the rulers of our superuniverse. These instructions lay
down certain rules which we are to follow in telling you new truths and
in clearing up what you know. These rules tell us to use human concepts
and ideas whenever we can. We are to use the best ideas that human beings
have had. When we simply cannot find a human concept to use then we can
tell you about how we look at these things. Then we will give you our own
ideas.

This is not the first revelation of truth on your world. Each revelation
must take in the best that is known at the time and must use it. Each revelation
starts out with the old and then goes on to give new truth and to better
sort out and clarify what you know. Now have we come to do this job of
telling you about God and his universe associates. But before we even started
out to tell you this story, we carefully studied the ideas that human beings
have had about these matters. We studied the ideas that human beings have
had, not only in the present but also in the past. We studied the ideas
that God knowing mortals have had. As a result of this study, we selected
more than one thousand concepts. These human concepts we have adopted as
the foundation for our story. Wherein these human concepts are not good
enough to tell the truth as we have been instructed to tell it, then we
will add to them. We will add to these human concepts by drawing upon our
own ideas and superior knowledge. We do know about the reality and divinity
of the Paradise Deities. We also know about the universe in which they
live -- the perfect universe of Havona.

We are well aware of the difficulties of our task. We know that we cannot
put our language into your language; too much is lost in translation. We
are going to talk about concepts of divinity and eternity. We are going
to use a language that has only finite words that can be understood by
human minds. But we know that we will have help. We are not just dependent
on mind alone. We know that a fragment of God himself lives within each
human mind. We also know that the Spirit of Truth lives with each human
soul. We further know that these spirit forces are going to help human
beings understand what we are talking about. They are going to help you
understand what spiritual values are all about. They are going to help
you understand what universe meanings are all about. But most of all, they
are going to do something else, something much more important. These spirits
of Divine Presence are really able to help you to spiritually understand
a certain kind of truth. This is the truth which helps you to grow, to
make progress in personal religious experience. This is the truth by which
you become conscious of the presence and reality of God.

(This simplification was compiled by William S. Sadler, Jr., and he
accepts responsibility for the sacrifice of meaning, for the dilution of
fact, and for the distortion of truth. Much meaning has been sacrificed
to make some meaning clear. Much fact has been diluted to simplify the
understanding of some fact. Much truth has been distorted so that some
truth could be more easily comprehended.)